Chicken of the woods

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

Harvested yesterday afternoon,
almost 2 lbs.

http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu127/JonB_in_Glencoe/chickenofthewoods_zpsad6d02f2.jpg (http://s640.photobucket.com/user/JonB_in_Glencoe/media/chickenofthewoods_zpsad6d02f2.jpg.html)



Breakfast this morning:
Chicken of the woods sauteed with Onion and red bell pepper...It does have the texture of chicken and a wonderful pungency came out after it's lightly cooked. The rest is just my normal fare.
http://i640.photobucket.com/albums/uu127/JonB_in_Glencoe/breakfast_zpsbd7b7328.jpg (http://s640.photobucket.com/user/JonB_in_Glencoe/media/breakfast_zpsbd7b7328.jpg.html)

[JSH]

Those are darn good. I have been eating mushrooms/fungi since I was a kid. I have never been able to keep these down more than about 6 hours. Fed over 15 people the last time we cooked these. I was the only one that had a reaction. And before you ask there was no adult be stage involved.
Jeff

[AlaskanGuy]

Very nice...... I am a total mushroom head here.... Here are some alaskan types.... Including some hens, gypsies, and chantrel....

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[AlaskanGuy]

Jeff, some folks just have a reaction that others don't.. That is why i tell folks to always try a small portion of any edible mushroom and wait to see if there is a reaction.... Everybody is different.... Ad there are many folks that can not tolerate an otherwise edible mushroom.. Best to find out the easy way..lol

[Artful]

I have not harvested those since I moved from Oregon - That's good eats

[waksupi]

I harvested boletas the past couple days, and have them drying. My favorite dried mushroom. Don't much care for them fresh, drying them seems to enhance the flavor, and are great in rice dishes, and stuffing.

[JWFilips]

Well up my way in good ole PA we call them "rams heads"...but some call them "chickens of the woods" I usually get a good harvest in my yard. We have a few prerequisite "ancient oaks with a least one dead limb" as the mushroom lore goes.

Some go with breakfast eggs, some go with onions ( as side dishes) Half the harvest is usually dried & then ground to mushroom powder for soups or stews. Also a good quantity is diced up and sauteed in Olive oil then frozen in meal size packs. On a really good year I can find about 70 lbs on my property. Here is a photo of my recent yield.
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[JSH]

Chantrels are my favorite. A little olive oil,butter,garlic and chantrels sautéed and over a good grilled steak. I even prefer them over morels.
I dried some morels once. Never again in the house. And that was just over night in the dehydrator. Smell was not bad but man was it over powering after a few minutes.
I need to get back to chasing the chantrels in some of my old haunts.
My ex's uncle was a whiz at shrooms. He could keep me in them the better part of the year here in kansas. He had lived in Oregon for a long time. That is where he learned a lot about them.
He was fishing once and came by the house and wanted to borrow a ladder. He had his boat with him and I thought nothing of it. He came back a few hours later and dropped the ladder off. The boat was darn near full of oyster mushrooms along with some limbs he called seed. He got oyster mushrooms off of those logs for several years.
He used to give me a lot of what I think he called horse mushrooms. Big white ones with better flavor than any I ever had that were store bought.
Jeff

[xacex]

Man, I think I found one of those today while out hunting. Found a large chanterelle, and some other unidentified mushrooms.
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There were a few fairy rings out there too.

[AlaskanGuy]

The top left is surely a hen of the woods... Bottom left looks to be a shrimp russula. Dont know the 2 on the top right.

And the chantrels that we have here are called yellow foot chantrels.. Much smaller, but they grow in large groups. About 3 days ago, picked a 5 gallon bucket full. They are my favorites here, cuz they dry well, and they are even better when they re-constitute... Here is a pic...83271
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[xacex]

The top left is surely a hen of the woods... Bottom left looks to be a shrimp russula. Dont know the 2 on the top right.



I think you are right with the shrimp russula ID. There are tons down here right now. The other one looked interesting with the cup at the base, but looked like it was an inedible due to the real delicate flesh. The chanterelle was a Pacific golden.

[redneckdan]

Dunno. Not sure I could eat something genetically related to athletes foot...

[Shiloh]

We have Morels here. They say there are chicken of the woods, but if folks know where they are, they aren's saying.
Lots of Morels in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Shiloh

[7Acres]

Wow! Thanks for sharing. I need to learn more about eating edible wild mushrooms. How do you know when they need to be dried?

[AlaskanGuy]

I dry them for long term storage.... And with the chantrells, the flavor is actually stronger after drying.... I then crush them and put into old spice containers.. The large ones work best.. Them we just add a shake or to to just about everything... For omlets, steaks, and you name it....

[Gibbs44]

I wish I knew someone around here that new what to look for when looking for mushrooms, it's something I'd love to learn. As it is right now, I think I'll just buy mine. Not really something I want to make a mistake in. I bet they are good though.

[labradigger1]

My wife, son and myself ate some hen of the woods last friday, they were wonderful. Saturday evening we made homeade pizzas w/ a pile of the shrooms on it, sunday morning all 3 of us were in the emergency room sick as a dog and black stool. Thought sure we were all dead! Apparently we just ate to many and now all is well. Not sure if i can ever eat another shroom again.

[JWFilips]

My wife, son and myself ate some hen of the woods last friday, they were wonderful. Saturday evening we made homeade pizzas w/ a pile of the shrooms on it, sunday morning all 3 of us were in the emergency room sick as a dog and black stool. Thought sure we were all dead! Apparently we just ate to many and now all is well. Not sure if i can ever eat another shroom again.
Yes that can happen in some folks it is always best to limit your meals and try them sparingly at first. It is funny some years they will not bother me no matter if I over indulge & some years they weak havoc with the bowels if you have too many meals in a row ....In that case they produce the strangest "backside perfume" ever!:p

[MaryB]

Took some fresh morels this spring, added a some fresh caught walleye that I smoked and flaked. Stuff the morels, top with garlic butter bread crumbs, drizzle more garlic butter over the morels and grill or very hot smoke until cooked through.

[AlaskanGuy]

I posted a warning about this in the top of the thread.... Never never overindulge on mushrooms... Not a good practice even with store bought mushrooms. You might not have troubles one, or twice, but the 3rd time is a bitch...

[DougGuy]

My GF took me to her home state of Michigan in early May of this year, had a great time! We were fortunate enough that one of her dad's buddies has a hunting lease on property that he took us to and showed us how and where to find morels. He drove the back roads enough to confuse us, and for sure I couldn't tell you how to get there or how to get back out of there, but the morels were delicious. I had brought some livermush from central North Carolina and we had mush and morels for breakfast.. Very cool vacation!

These Michigan morels are the only wild mushrooms I have eaten, just never had any experience with other varieties..

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb374/DougGuy/MichiganVacation2013/Morel_zps6be3a489.jpg (http://s1202.photobucket.com/user/DougGuy/media/MichiganVacation2013/Morel_zps6be3a489.jpg.html)

[AlaskanGuy]

These are really good....
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They are called green rushula's...... They arent very good dried, but man are they good fresh, and we have lots of them. AlaskaGurl and I picked gobs of them, and they are yummy... I tried to post pics of all their color variations, and what they are growing in usually influences the actual color on top.

If anybody wants to know a mushroom type, take a good pic of the top and bottom like the above pics and i will try to id them for ya.. But remember i am only familiar with the alaskans... But most of ours grow all over the US...